


First Date

by sunwukong



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwukong/pseuds/sunwukong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They're just two adults getting coffee. Nothing out of the ordinary, and no 'my-dad-killed-your-dad' or weird other-world shenanigans even had to come up at all.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Date

**Author's Note:**

> For the fanworkathon. Prompt: Kaito and Chris are getting coffee together, Kaito's hands keep shaking every time he tries to take drink from his cup.

It takes Kaito ten minutes to walk to the cafe like a normal person who doesn't own a talking robot that transforms into a glider, and the clock reads twenty minutes to four. He paces back and forth in his room and feels like he hasn't been able to breathe properly for a week. It was a week ago that he was pinged via the d-gazer he used exclusively for rare personal communication—so rare that he doesn't remember the last time it lit up, actually.  
  
 _I'm visiting Heartland in a week. Do you have time to meet up? We could grab coffee._  
  
Kaito, squiting at the small display, had sent back,  _Who the hell is this._  
  
And the reply:  _Sorry—It's Chris._  
  
So it had been decided: 4 PM. Friday.  
  
The last time Kaito had “met up” with Chris, it ended with Chris slipping into a coma. He figures this time really couldn't go any worse, but that's a small comfort when with every second that passes, he feels less and less like he fits in his own skin. He feels like a teenager before his first date—or maybe he wishes he felt something like that, because that's not true at all. He knows Chris, and Chris knows him, and there are about a thousand things that were left unsaid between them that Kaito would never say out loud anyway, but it makes Kaito wish that it were just some dumb high school date with someone he barely knew.  
  
(It's not a  _date_ , anyway, Kaito rationalizes, and regrets that the comparison came to mind at all. They're just two adults getting coffee. Nothing out of the ordinary, and no 'my-dad-killed-your-dad' or weird other-world shenanigans even had to come up at all.)  
  
Worrying, as it turns out, doesn't make the time pass much faster. But Kaito figures it's better to be early, even if he has to deal with being in public, with people, with waiters trying to talk to him, than to be stuck in the emptiness of Heartland Tower while Haruto is at school and Faker is out with only his racing mind. Thinking about Chris throws Kaito off-kilter, and in general, he tries not to think about him at all. (Whether or not he succeeds is an entirely different story, especially over the course of the past week.)  
  
***  
  
He's early, and Chris is late. Five minutes past four, he stares at the tabletop like it'll give him the answers to life and the universe and how to deal with your little brother growing up and how to talk to former mentors with pretty eyes who tried to incapacitate you but you still never quite got over--  
  
There's the sound of a chair scraping and he looks up, as calmly as he can manage, to meet a very familiar face and a very familiar pair of pretty eyes.  
  
Kaito, as a rule, is never self-conscious about his fashion choices. They're practical enough for what he needs to do (make dramatic entrances through windows, look intimidating when the wind blows)--but Chris is in a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and his exposed wrists are angular in a way that makes Kaito want to run his thumbs over them, and suddenly Kaito feels completely inappropriately dressed.  
  
“It's been a while, hasn't it?” Chris smiles, and at the very least, Kaito can take solace in the fact that the smile looks as hesitant as he feels.  
  
“Yeah,” says Kaito.  
  
Chris sits down across from him, and with the smile never leaving his face, asks the passing waitress for two cups of coffee.  
  
“That's okay, right?” he turns back to Kaito, looking slightly embarrassed. “I should've asked first.”  
  
Kaito shrugs. He's not particularly picky about his caffeine, as long as it gets him through a day. “It's fine. Thank you.”  
  
Chris folds his hands on the table in front of him. (They're nice hands. They've always been, long fingers and elegant bones.) “So. What have you been up to?”  
  
Kaito is sure he has an answer, but somehow “wringing my hands over my little brother wanting to go outside and do things” and “hanging out with middle schoolers and trying to tell them how to play card games better” seem kind of underwhelming. He says, “Not much. They finished rebuilding Heartland Tower recently. Haruto has been feeling a lot better.”  
  
Chris says, “I'm glad to hear that.” His eyes soften at the mention of Haruto, and it makes Kaito's heart do a little flip in his chest.  
  
( _He kidnapped him once,_  says a small part of his mind.  _He cared about him once,_  says another.  _He still does,_  says yet another.)  
  
The waitress comes back to the table and sets down two steaming cups in front of them, and in an attempt to do something other than put his foot in his mouth, Kaito picks his up right away. It doesn't hit him exactly how nervous he still is until he notices how much the hand holding the cup handle is trembling, so he sets it back down without taking a sip and hopes Chris didn't notice. He takes a breath and says, “What about you? Why are you back in Heartland?”  
  
Kaito watches Chris dump three packets of sugar and two little cups of creamer in his coffee before he answers, “I'm doing a bit of research into the parallel worlds.”  
  
Kaito nods in acknowledgment and attempts again to take a drink from his cup, but he's still shaking a little and this time Chris  _does notice_ , because he's reaching out and saying “Oh, careful there,” and they're about to touch and so Kaito does the completely rational thing and nearly jumps out of his skin before they can make contact, spilling coffee down the entire front of his coat and making a noise not unlike a screech because it's still _hot_ , and then there's no more coffee in his cup and all of it on himself and the floor and a couple of people sitting around them staring and Chris across from him looking like he's halfway between disbelief and laughter, and Kaito feels himself start to smile in spite of himself because the only other choice is to evaporate from shame and the universe has apparently not seen fit to make that happen for him.  
  
He starts laughing out loud, and Chris, after a moment, joins him, and they're making a scene in the nice little cafe on a quiet Friday afternoon, so Chris puts down enough cash to cover two coffees and they see themselves out.  
  
“You should get yourself cleaned up,” says Chris, still smiling as if he's trying his hardest not to burst into another laughing fit.  
  
“I should,” Kaito agrees, looking down at himself. “I'm just going to head home, then.”  
  
Chris looks like he's considering something for a half-second before he asks, “Am I invited, too?”  
  
“Okay,” says Kaito. Somehow, walking home looking like you shat yourself seems less uncomfortable in company, even if said company is still in pristine head-to-toe white.  
  
On the bright side, said company also doesn't seem to be very embarrassed about it, either, because Chris takes Kaito's hand in his and says, “Then I'll follow you,” and Kaito averts his eyes, because now he really does feel like a teenager on his first date, but it's also the first time he's managed to breathe properly in a week.  
  
All it took was him completely making a fool of himself in public.


End file.
